1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lawn mower provided with a support frame that is connected to a rear part of a vehicle body; and a grass collector that is supported on the support frame so as to be capable of swiveling around a transverse shaft to switch between a grass collecting position and a discharge position.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a lawn mower of such description, switching between the discharge position and the grass collecting position of the lawnmower is performed using a discharge cylinder. A conventional example is disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application 2001-95344.
The lawn mower disclosed in the above document is provided with a pair of left and right vertical support frames that are connected to a rear part of a machine body frame; a raising/lowering frame that is vertically movably connected to the left and right pair of vertical support frames using a vertical member; a grass collector that is supported on the raising/lowering frame; and an opening and closing cylinder provided to a left side of the grass collector.
The grass collector is rotatably supported around a transverse support point on a rear end part of a longitudinally oriented member of the raising/lowering frame. The opening/closing cylinder is disposed between a reinforcement member of the grass collector and the longitudinally oriented member of the raising/lowering frame, and swivels the grass collector upward around the support point to a discharge position, or swivels the grass collector downward around the support point to a grass collecting position.
In the lawn mower described above, when the conventional technique described above is used in order to enable a discharge cylinder to switch the grass collector between the grass collecting position and the discharge position, problems tend to arise in relation to the number of discharge cylinders that are required and the positions to which the grass collector is switched.
Specifically, using the conventional technique described above will cause the discharge cylinder to be positioned on a lateral exterior side of the grass collector. In this case, when fewer discharge cylinders are provided, the swiveling of the grass collector as carried out by the discharge cylinder occurs on one side of the grass collector, which will cease to swivel smoothly. In order to prevent this problem, discharge cylinders must be provided to both sides of the grass collector, and the number of required discharge cylinders increases.